Comtrust offers end-to-end e-biz solutions

Last year, Comtrust attended Gitex as an infrastructure provider. However, having spent 12 months developing, launching and implementing a wide range of commercial offerings, the Etisalat division will attend this year's show as a fully-fledged end-to-end e-business provider. As such, the company's focus throughout the five-day event will be on solutions, rather than stand alone products.

"We are very much solutions orientated," confirms Ahmad Abdulkarim Julfar, general manager of Comtrust. "We are continuously expanding our service offerings to cater to the ever-growing needs of our market. Today, we hold a unique position within the region in that we are truly an end-to-end solution provider," he adds.

Visitors to Comtrust's stand will be able to hear about its wide array of solutions and services, from hosting and e-payments through to online retailing, security and consulting. According to the Etisalat spin off, this year's Gitex will also see a number of new developments come under the spotlight.

"As a company, we have made great strides in the development of our product portfolio. The last six months have seen a number of longterm initiatives begin to bear fruit and we intend to highlight this come Gitex," says Julfar.

Among the solutions Comtrust intends to highlight at Gitex are its improved hosting rates, its PKI offering and its enhanced consultancy services. With regard to pricing, the company has revised its structure and included periodic statistical reporting and service level agreements (SLAs) as standard in the higher tier packages.

"In the past, there have been misnomers regarding our pricing versus service offering. This is something we are actively addressing. Gitex will play a role in our efforts to educate the market," says Julfar. "The idea is to give visitors a holistic view of our eHosting services, ensuring potential customers not only have an understanding of our services but gain an insight into the technology we utilise," he adds.

Part of the education process will revolve around Comtrust's disaster recovery services and managed hosting services, which gives customers the option of outsourcing the management of their systems, OS and database.

"This is something we have been developing for a while," says Julfar. "We now have all the necessary ingredients in place to offer this service and it is something we intend to actively push at this year's Gitex," he adds.

In terms of consultancy, Comtrust will be telling visitors to the show about its ability to take projects from conceptualisation and design to implementation through to ongoing management. "This is a key part of our drive to be recognised as a solutions orientated entity and the the region's only end-to-end e-business specialist," says Julfar.